What if Walt Disney was the producer of Looney Tunes/Walt Disney Animated Classics/The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a 1993 American animated musical dark fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. It is directed by Tim Burton and Henry Selick and produced by Walt Disney, Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi, with Steven Spielberg as an executive producer. The 54th Disney animated feature film, the film tells the story of Jack Skellington, the ruler of "Halloween Town" who stumbles through a portal to "Christmas Town" and decides to celebrate the holiday, with some dastardly and comical consequences. Danny Elfman wrote the songs and score, and provided the singing voice of Jack. The principal voice cast also includes Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, William Hickey, Ken Page, Paul Reubens, and Glenn Shadix. The Nightmare Before Christmas originated in a poem which co-director/co-producer Tim Burton wrote in 1982, while he was working as an animator at Disney. With the success of Vincent in the same year, Walt Disney began to consider developing The Nightmare Before Christmas as either a short film or 30-minute television special. However, Disney soon found that the only way to do justice to Burton's idea was to make it feature-length, which the film's production as a feature-length began in 1986. The film was met with both critical and financial success, grossing over $76 million during its initial run. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, a first for an animated film. The film has since been reissued, and was re-released annually in Disney Digital 3-D from 2006 until 2009. Plot Halloween Town is a fantasy world filled with citizens such as deformed monsters, ghosts, ghouls, goblins, zombies, mummies, vampires, werewolves, and witches. Jack Skellington, the "Pumpkin King" and leader of the town, leads them in organizing the annual Halloween celebrations. However, privately Jack has grown weary of the same routine year after year, and wants something new. Wandering in the woods the morning after Halloween, he stumbles across seven trees containing doors leading to towns representing various holidays, and opens a portal to Christmas Town. Awed by the unfamiliar holiday, Jack returns to Halloween Town to show the residents his findings, but they fail to grasp the idea of Christmas and compare everything to their ideas of Halloween. Jack sequesters himself in his tower to study Christmas and find a way to rationally explain it, but cannot. He ultimately decides that it's unfair for Christmas Town alone to enjoy the holiday and announces that he and the citizens of Halloween Town will take over Christmas this year. Jack assigns the citizens of Halloween Town Christmas-themed jobs, including singing carols, making presents, and building a sleigh to be pulled by skeletal reindeer. Sally, a beautiful rag doll woman that is secretly in love with Jack, feels that their efforts will end in disaster, but Jack dismisses her and assigns her the task of sewing him a red coat to wear. He also tasks Tin, Pan and Alley, a trio of siamese cats from previous Disney films, to abduct Santa Claus and bring him back to Halloween Town. Jack tells Santa he will be bringing Christmas to the world in his place this year. Jack orders the trio to keep Santa safe, but the cats instead deliver Santa to Oogie Boogie, a gambling-addict bogeyman, who plots to play a game with Santa's life at stake. Sally attempts to rescue Santa so he can stop Jack, but Oogie captures her as well. Jack departs to deliver presents to the world, but the Halloween-styled gifts terrify and attack the populace. As concerns over "Santa's" behavior grows, the military takes action and shoot down Jack, causing him to crash in the cemetery. As Jack bemoans the disaster he has made of Christmas, he finds he enjoyed the experience nonetheless, reigniting his love of Halloween. Jack returns to Halloween Town, scares Tin, Pan and Alley away and finds Oogie's lair. Oogie tries to kill Jack, but Jack pulls apart the thread holding his cloth form together, revealing a massive pile of bugs that fall into Oogie's cauldron and are killed. Jack apologizes to Santa for his actions, and Santa assures Jack that he can fix things and returns to Christmas Town. As Santa replaces the Halloween-style presents with genuine ones, the townspeople of Halloween Town celebrate Jack's return. Santa then visits Halloween Town and brings them a snowfall for the residents to play with. In the graveyard, Jack and Sally declare their love for each other. Voice Cast Production Development Animation Soundtrack Release Home media Reception Box office Critical response Accolades Possible sequel Trivia